G8: OVER-EXPLOITED SOUTH SARDINIA A TEST CASE FOR G8 MEETING.

By Sabina Zaccaro

ROME, Jul. 6, 2009 (IPS/GIN) - Although the G8 leaders summit has been moved to the quake-hit city of L'Aquila, more than a dozen civil society organizations are staying on in Sardinia in support of a region hit by unemployment and environmental contamination.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi moved the G8 meeting from Sardinia to L'Aquila, north-east of Rome, after a major earthquake almost destroyed L'Aquila and surroundings in April, killing 300 people. The government explained the relocation as "an act of solidarity, and attention to the region's population."

But 17 national, international and regional NGOs that had begun work with the people of Sardinia decided they would not walk out on the region. "We had started to work with the local communities on our joint proposals to the G8 when the decision was taken," says Raffaella Bolini of the human rights organization Arci. "And we decided to maintain our activities there, particularly in the mining areas of Sulcis Iglesiente and Maedio Campidano."

According to organizers of an alternative GSott8 (G Underground) summit, Sardinia and areas around are a metaphor for challenges arising from climate change and the financial crisis.

Sulcis region in southern Sardinia has gone through years of over-exploitation of its mineral and natural resources, that have now run dry.

Sardinia was long the most important mining region of Italy for lead, zinc, copper and other metals. The decline of their economic value, which experts see as a consequence of changes in mining activities in less developed countries, led to an abandonment of workers in many areas of the island.